On Thursday, I posted an article on the Ghost Hunter Hall of Fame’s newest inductee: Francis Smith. In 1804, this overzealous man was tried for murder after shooting an innocent man, having taken him for the Hammersmith Ghost. Or, I should say, having taken that poor victim for the culprit who was causing serious trouble by pretending to be the Hammersmith Ghost.
I had announced the new inductee on Facebook and Twitter, and on Friday, my visitor count shot up. (It’s always an honor being re-tweeted by the Society for Psychical Research!) However, I’ve since tinkered with and enlarged that page by adding a few more historical sources along with some nifty nineteenth-century illustrations of the incident. If you’ve already seen the article, you might take another look.
There’s a very good chance that Smith will be duly noted in the Introduction of The Victorian Ghost Hunter’s Casebook. 1804 precedes the Victorian era by over thirty years, but the case remained in the public eye for decades. The tragedy surrounding Smith served as a stark example of how not to go about ghost hunting to the paranormal investigators whose chronicled cases are spotlighted in that book.
You can get to the article about Smith by clicking here and The Ghost Hunter Hall of Fame here. Learn more about The Victorian Ghost Hunter’s Casebook — which will be available in mid-December — by clicking here.
— Tim
BROM BONES BOOKS 